Despite shedding tens of thousand of jobs because of the credit crunch and recession, Wall Street firms are still hiring 2009 business-school graduates at a healthy clip, college professors and administrators tell The Post.

The brighter-than-expected jobs report is welcome news to students and placement officers alike.

“The jobs are still there in banking, operations, research and other areas,” said Trudy Steinfeld, executive director in career development at New York University. “When students in senior business classes here were asked who hadn’t gotten jobs lined up this year, typically only a few hands shot up.”

Among those going from the classroom to the office is Xiaolu Xie, an NYU finance student in international business. She’ll be going to work with Wells Fargo this July as a corporate-banking analyst in its Midtown Manhattan office.

“I was definitely nervous and anxious and I sent resumes out for 100 positions – and got 10 interviews,” said the 21-year-old New Yorker.

Wells Fargo has reported that it is laying off 25,000 to 28,000 people related mostly to its purchase of Wachovia.

J. Randall Woolridge, a finance professor at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business, says 2009 is certainly tougher than in recent years, but one group of some 15 graduating students he advises on managing a stock portfolio have all landed jobs.

“Investment banks are getting rid of staff earning $600,000 to $700,000 a year, and hiring graduating students on annual salaries and bonuses of $100,000 to $125,000,” said Woolridge. “They always need these worker bees.”

At the University of Pennsylvania, Barbara Hewitt, senior associate director in career services, estimates the majority of the 660 undergraduate business students who’ll pick up a diploma this May have job offers. “It is not as dire as some people might think with all the layoffs on Wall Street,” she said. “We’re not going to end up with half of the class not having jobs.”

Added Woolridge: “The job situation for students is not nearly as bad as you might think if you were watching CNBC every day.”

Colleges in the New York region and beyond say that despite the Street’s wholesale employment slaughter – Mayor Bloomberg estimated 46,000 jobs would be shed on Wall Street – a sizeable number of graduating students this year have job offers, with salaries of $60,000 commonplace.

That’s a far cry from the nose-bleed compensation levels once offered – and the signing bonuses, fat expense accounts, free limo rides and other perks are certainly gone.

Banks have to fill positions that were vacated by the thousands of layoffs in recent times, said NYU’s Steinfeld.

Howard Ross, a New York financial-services headhunter said salaries for students out of college don’t go much higher than $60,000 a year, unless a student is in a specialized mathematical field.

A spokesperson for Bank of America – which has been cutting costs and firing staff as it absorbs Merrill Lynch – said the bank will “continue to recruit and hire to support the needs of our business.” A person familiar with Credit Suisse said the firm will embark upon some “strategic hiring.” Both Goldman Sachs and Citigroup declined to discuss its recruitment.